Caregiver guilty of scratching boys

A Tokelauan woman's years of disciplining two boys in her care by scratching them with her fingernails has drawn a 300-hour community work sentence.

The offending - her second set of convictions for assaulting the boys - has also caused a deep and possibly permanent rift for Motuloto Tovio's family in Tokelau.

The probation officer's pre-sentence report stated: "It would appear that Miss Tovio was ill equipped to cope with the single parenting role and resorted to strategies that were familiar to her but unacceptable in New Zealand."

Her lawyer, Colin Eason, and Christchurch District Court sentencing judge Raoul Neave accepted that was the likely explanation.

Tovio faced 15 charges of assault, assault with a weapon, and wilful neglect at her trial, alleging attacks on the boys with all sorts of household items including high-heeled shoes, a fish slice, a vacuum cleaner pipe, a barbecue implement and a stick.

The jury found her guilty on the two scratching charges, by a majority, and unanimously found her not guilty on two other charges.

The judge discharged her on the wilful neglect charge at the end of the Crown case.

The jury could not reach verdicts on the 10 remaining charges. Crown prosecutor Lisa Preston said the Crown would not proceed with a retrial and Tovio was discharged on those charges.

The two boys, aged 9 and 10 at the time of the offences, gave evidence at the trial but have now returned to their family in Tokelau. They would have faced a long trip with their mother to return to New Zealand for another trial.

Mrs Preston said Tovio, a 46-year-old fishery worker, had been convicted of assaulting the same children in 2005, when she had admitted charges of assault, assault with a blunt instrument, and assault with intent to injure.

She had used a weightlifter's belt to beat the boys over a period of hours when the school contacted her about a missing watch, which had been found when the beating took place.

She received a sentence of 200 hours of community work for those assaults and did a parental management programme, but continued to use unacceptable physical assaults to impose discipline at home, said Mrs Preston.

Mr Eason told the court: "This has caused a major and probably permanent rift within the family and created huge embarrassment ..."

Judge Neave said that the children had come into Tovio's care because of the family dynamics in the Tokelaus.

The boys maintained their affection for her, and there was no evidence she had neglected the children.

"It seems pretty clear that notwithstanding the interventions, you simply weren't able to find appropriate methods of disciplining the children. It may well be a function of being relatively isolated from your family."

He sentenced her to perform 300 hours of community work and gave leave for some of the hours to be converted to training.

- NZPA